Sister Bonds

 

Having spent some time recently with my older sister, it reminded me of so many shared moments in our youth.  Those years were some of the most formidable in our lives.  The times you spend trying to keep

yourself busy when bored during long summers, fights that get resolved because your sisters and can’t erase each other from your lives and shared experiences with family, both good and bad. Each contributes to the development of personality and what the paradigm of a family should be.

For Terri and I, on the outside we look as different as can be. On the inside though, the heart of who we are, is very similar. We both yearned for a close knit family with our own children when we grew up and the stability of knowing we were grounded in love and in education.  We both have developed very strong female friendships that have been a source of strength and joy for us both.   The unconditional regard and acceptance with love from family is wonderful but from someone you are not related to is priceless. This affirmation is based on choice.  Great friends are like an adoptive family member.

When it is all said and done though, the unconditional love between siblings is a bond that is hard to break. Thank God for that!

Back in the Pink Saddle!

 

She’s back! It was been so long since I have written a blog on this page.  I have not felt any topic pulling on me that motivated me to write.  Now with so much time isolated in my home more than ever, since COVID peaks, I have the time and drive.

Why the time? Another blasted breast cancer diagnosis. No worries, I won’t bore you with the details.  I have a Caring Bridge page for that.  I think the page has sorta became self-therapy for me and bypassed a lot of technical questions people want to ask you by just putting it out there, updates and such.

I have never considered myself a great writer, just someone who always seems to have a lot to say and has always loved writing. Story telling is a hidden art and one not valued enough too. If you want to become a better writer, read, read and then read some more. You develop a very discerning eye for those who write good and some, well not so good!

Sharing is caring, so I will share some of this journey, most the mental side, how my view of the world is changing and my attitude towards everything. This time I know I will, if I come out okay, never be the same. Hopefully with inputs from others, an even better version of me. LOL!  May you find things in your own life that motivate you to a bigger better you!  

There is a huge problem in America many are not aware of, nursing homes.   The list of issues is limitless but is all caused by one problem, read below. Let your Congressmen(women) know you care about this very important issue  and would like to see our Congress review and delve into it and any potential recommendations for positive change.  I welcome your comments. 

Here is my letter sent to both representatives in US Congress in both Senate and the House in Michigan and Tennessee. If issues are not brought up by voters, too often they are ignored.  

     I am a concerned voter who would like to bring your attention to an issue that is bi-partisan. The network of nursing homes deserves careful review by members of Congress as a national problem and some would say a disgrace.  We are seeing an epidemic problem in the making as America is growing its elderly population.  Currently there are 16.5 million Americans over the age of 65 years old.   Many of these still vote and have family members concerned about this issue that are registered voters as well.

     Nursing home issues stem from a central problem, understaffing.  With so many patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s, the care patients receive is 100% reliant on the staff at these facilities which is not sufficient.  According to the Alzheimer's Association 2020 Disease Facts and Figures report, 48% of all nursing home residents have either of these two diagnoses. 

     My mother, Margaret Lillian Ketterman  was one of these patients until she died September 24^th of this year.  My letter is in behalf of my mother at her request when she was dying.

·         Her home was The Laurels of Sandy Creek which is in Michigan (Wayland). 

·         As a co-guardian of my mother, I was responsible with my sister for overseeing her care and attending to her needs.

·         This was nearly impossible many times.  The front desk would answer a call but there was no nurse available to update her status on a given day or hold the phone to our mother’s ear. 

·         Though my mother had dementia, it affected her body more than her mind so she had general awareness of her condition and that of the staff there. She was concerned about making the few staff available that had not quit yet angry so seldom used her voice thus was entirely reliant on us.

·         We had monthly care calls for our mom set up by the social worker at the facility. No nurse was available for the calls the majority of the time.

·         Her hospice nurse, brought in to the care my mother when it became obvious she was dying, had to provide some basic needs that were not being met, e.g. bathing, food she could and would eat.

     These conditions are the norm in nursing homes all across the country. Please consider contacting hospices in your district and ask them how well nursing homes are staffed and what problems they see due to a lack of employees there.  Make an impromptu unannounced visit to a nursing home in your district and observe the number of nursing staff on a floor, sometimes is appalling.

     The law in the state of Michigan is that court appointed guardians must visit once every 3 months. This is not sufficient for a deteriorating patient when staff is unable to adequately address their growing needs.   I was unable to locate the visitation requirements for guardianship for elderly in the state of Tennessee but know that guardianships are not a working solution for issues for seniors in nursing homes. An estimated 1.3 million adults are under guardianship in this country, 85 percent of them over 65 per AARP.

General Statistics:

·         Population of Michigan residents in nursing homes in 2020 – 36,749; In the state of TN: 26,647

·         Note: In 2019, the state of Tennessee had an estimated population of 6,829,174 people, and 16.7% of that population is aged 65 and over

·         Population of US residents in nursing homes in 2021 – 10,077,331

  My suggestions are as follows:

·         Form a committee to review the need for improvement in overall care of both nursing home residents and nursing staff.

·         Examine the pay scale for staff to see if this is a contributing factor in high turnover rates.

·         Is this problem worse in homes like the one my mother was in that are almost entirely reliant on federal/state aid, e.g. Medicaid patients?

     Without aggressive action, we are treating residents no better than inmates though they have committed no crime. Note, that as of 2015, monies going to nursing home care amounted to 169 billion dollars. Voters will be responsive to changes and strongly support agenda to implement change.

Sincerely,

Veronica A. Gliatti

Co-Guardian - M.L. Ketterman

Please do your part and contact your representative!

My mother (in front)  with her older sister and brother in 2021. 

Bye For Only Now Mom.......

That dollar bill you sent me,

It came on Monday with the mail,

It reminded me of my birthday

And how you remembered it always without fail.

 

I think you tried to show me

How much you cared with that card,

And thank God I got it,

When my life was getting hard.

 

We sailed in and out of each other’s lives,

Capturing moments here and there,

Never letting down those unforgiving walls,

To show the depth of our care.

 

But when it mattered most

Is when you said good-bye

We knew we both had closure

As we both embraced and cried.

 

As you sail to heaven,

With that beautiful smile on your face,

I hear the sounds of your laughter,

It fills me up in that empty space.

 

Forever I will love you Mom,

Forever I will care,

The blessing of you in my life

Is a legacy I proudly wear.

I spent most of my life hating my mother for what she wasn’t instead of loving her for what she was.  I don’t think it fully hit me till she died. Now there is just a bit of an empty space where a lot of good memories could have been filled.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda.  Moments that passed in the wind silently without a lot of forethought.

I was raised by my biological mom for a few years, than an in-house nanny for a few more and then a step-mother for most of my remaining growing up years. I think I was pretty clear where I stood with all of them but my real mother.  I felt like, to the nanny, I was a paycheck but I grew to be someone she loved  to and to  my step-mom,  I was part of a package deal. When she married my dad, she tried to love me but there was always something that blocked the way. And to my real mom, Margie, I never quite knew where I stood. It was easier to believe all of the ugly things said about her by many than to figure out who she was on my own, understand her life choices and accept the fact that maybe, inspite of her demons, she loved me.

This blog isn’t, in many ways, about my mother’s life but about a daughter’s understanding of acceptance of one’s mother.  We moms, speaking from experience,  are not perfect but yet we try to measure up to this immeasurable stick of expectations we put on ourselves and society feeds into. My friend recently said to me that over half the people she has met in her life came from dysfunctional families. She feels the number is closer to 75% plus.  America is flooded with families struggling to survive, meet the demands of life in these complex times and along the way, try to maintain a semblance of normalcy.  It is a hard road to tow.

 For me, I have learned we are all complex beings motivated and touched by all kinds of stimuli, some we can control and some we can’t.  We do the best we can do with what we are given and try to make up for the difference.   Acceptance of ourselves as well as for others for their short-comings is critical to happiness.  Accepting someone else’s misgivings is a closer step to God, fulfillment in a sense.  It shows a depth of compassion and understanding.  It is the goal we should all aspire to practice.

With my mother, she lived a troubled life. She had some mental issues that, in her day, were never addressed properly and thus, she was judged by, yes, even me by an impossible standard to reach.   As she aged and I learned of her many roadblocks, disappointments and weaknesses I saw a beautiful soul that was just trying to do the best she could do with what she had. I am not so sure any of us are that different than my mom, trying to get by on what we know to be true. Her truths were just jaded by life’s experiences to her and her processing of those challenges.   She never got the help she really needed till far too late in her life. When she finally got it, was diagnosed and treated, the beauty of my mother came out.  Along with that, beautiful petals of the chapters of her life became evident, a true understanding of who she was and an outpouring of her life’s pitfalls.

 I am not writing to share those publicly because my mother was a proud woman. She wouldn’t want those shared. But she would want others to know that living a troubled life lends itself to making unhealthy choices. Those choices formulate the story of your life and those around you, and yes, even those omitted from the chapters of your life.   Loss of time with loved ones, and losing a connection to those that should matter in your life simply because of circumstances is a tough pill to swallow. Too often, priorities become jumbled with the tedious parts of living and by the wayside goes the things God would want us to focus on.  We must take these lessons and share.

 What I have learned, through my mother’s death, is the pricelessness of moments.  I am grateful that her and I had the sweetness of our memories to keep us both warm inside as mother and daughter now that she is gone.  I am saddened we didn’t have more. But,  I feel blessed for the closure we both got and the unconditional love we experienced in the end.   I saw the beauty in God’s creation in my mom, finally but in some sense, a little too late. It is far gone the chance to build more memories with my mother. We both stood in the way of that happening for complex reasons at the time that no longer make sense.

 I pray that in reading this you will learn to accept your parents for who they are instead of what you wish them to be. Don’t make excuses for not making them a priority either because you are their legacy and they must know they matter. And remember that it is only through acceptance and understanding can we find unconditional love.

 Click here for Memories of Margie 

And She's Back......

Wow, I haven’t written on this blog in far too long. When one loses the drive to write, it is extremely hard to overcome. I have three books out and then, for some reason, I put the brakes on any and all writing. I suppose I became my worst critic deciding I had nothing worthwhile to say and my writing was not up to par, some unimaginable standard I established for myself.  As if my writing had to mirror some other author I deemed superior. 

In its place, I indulged in my passion, reading. The litany of books I have delved in to the pages of has been extensive.  What I had found is that the more exposure you have to different authors, the more views you are offered. I have also realized that each author has their own paradigm of what makes a novel work and a choice of what style of writing best serves their story.  Some of the decision making is based on what is the author’s personality and comfort zone. And I came to the conclusion, after having read countless books this past year that my style of writing, in–your-face story telling  without elaborate embellishments,i s not only my preferred way to write but my preferential style to read. 

 

And thus, I will try to make time to write. I miss so many of you that follow me and long to hear from you, your stories, comments and feedback.  Thank you for egging me on to get back to blogging!

The Friendship Net

 

Friendships on social media are like no others. You reach across the worldwide web and become connected to people you would otherwise never know.  Several I would surely miss if the internet permanently broke!

 I have found wonderful friends in various states across America and Canada over the past several years. Sharing our views on everything from politics to child-rearing, cooking to other outside interests has been challenging, at times, and invigorating. It has taken me through the best of times and the worst of them. And through it all, it restores my faith in people. We need to reach outside our comfort zone and connect with others, even ones with opposing views. How boring is life if all you see in others is a direct reflection of exactly you? Hearing once strangers share pieces of their life is inspiring and leads to personal growth. 

It constantly amazes me that there is a commonality of all God’s people from the farthest reaches of the world. So many goals, hopes and dreams are intertwined with the same expectation across the gamut. We are alike as much as we differ.  Surely everyone should learn to appreciate that.

I say thank you in this short blog to those friendships that occurred simply because you too were looking for a bit more depth in your life. Thank you for being on social media so I could meet you, digitally. I hope I bring more to your circle because you all, most certainly, add to mine!

Grandma's Prizes

I haven't written in awhile as, like most of us, feeling in a funk. This piece was easy and rewarding to write. Please feel free to add comments to anything I have missed or your own observations. 

What being a grandma means to me:

·             Seeing the circle of life unfold right before my very eyes

·             Watching the growth of an individual knowing the child wouldn’t be there without me giving         birth to their parent

·            Having the chance to see my child develop into a loving caring nurturing parent

·             Finding the laughter of a child and the tears forever change me and melt my heart

·             Finding that the depth of love has no bounds

·             Being able to play with a child I love and give them back when I tire!

·             Hearing the nickname you are given (grandma, gammie, nana, etc) and it never getting old

·             Possessing the wisdom of years and having an attentive ear to your lessons

·             Being able to step back when discipline is needed and forward for all the accomplishments

·            Adoring eyes are mutual

fja    Learning some of the best things in life come in small packages

        Seeing seeds take root again with lots of love and acts of kindness

·            Knowing I am leaving a lovely legacy of my life behind

A Classic Read

 

I just read a classic, again. First time in years! Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The mastery of the English language is not something you often see in written form anymore. I must say it was a harder read, as in I had to take my time with this book. Even though I can speed read, this was not the kind of novel you could or wanted to exercise that skill. In doing so, you would miss the richness of the language.

Our Book Club picked The Scarlet Letter this month because consensually we agreed reading a classic once a year should be a must.  It was even better this time around! What I got out of the book was so different than previous as I have matured since college days, as most of us have. (Or was it high school I read it; it escapes me, just like many things at this age!).

I urge all of you that follow my blog to take the time to pick a classic book and read it.  Then suggest it to someone else. Understand what makes masterful writing!

Sail Away

With COVID19 in our world right now and many dying, it seems appropriate to revisit this beautiful piece I had gotten from a friend by Henry Van Dyke.

          I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

           Then someone at my side says, “There, she is gone!”

           “Gone where?”

           Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

          Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There, she is gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

                                                                                          Henry Van Dyke

 

Work in Progress

        I am currently working on a murder mystery book. I never thought I would be able to write a lengthy one. I am more of a straight shooter and felt like what do you say besides someone was murdered and who did it?  But in writing this story and it evolving, it has been fun to kind of drop clues along the way, red flags so to speak, until it all comes together to a crashing end. 

I think the hardest part is being objective about what you are writing. I get so caught up in the characters and the story that it is hard to imagine what a reader would be sensing. Am I being too obvious about how it will unfold? Will the story hold someone’s interest? All those kinds of thoughts I try to push to the back of my mind so I can stay focused.  

Writing a blog is easier because it is shorter in length, once you come up with a topic to write about. I think that is why I compiled, in my first book, a collection of my blogs. I thought it would be easy but in actuality, it was an incredibly time consuming project. Rewriting and editing those pieces was stressful; even with my editing and several others, when the book came out, reading it in its entirety I still found mistakes. And by then, the book was in many people’s hands. Oh, to admit we are human is a beautiful thing! 

All this to say, as a reminder, we all have stories inside us. It is just a matter of taking the time to write them down in a coherent fashion. May you find one way or another to let your mind be imaginative! It will help keep you young at heart. 

New Book - Leash on Love

    Tell the truth, lol!  For years, so much of what I have written is non-fiction here on my blog page and elsewhere, in particular my career assignments. I decided to take a gander at the women’s fiction of today. I have found there is an ever-growing list of female authors writing light-hearted novels about life and love.  With that in mind, I jumped in and wrote one. Hope you enjoy it! It was certainly fun writing and evolving a story line around a fictional woman. 

     The book is called Leash on Love and is sold on Amazon. Will she or won’t she find her happiness?

Sold on Amazon

Sunflower Sentimentality

Reaching towards the sky,

I feel the sun’s rays,

It warms my heart

And brightens up my day.

I have always loved sunflowers. The simplistic look and beauty of the flower encapsulates the love of nature God brings to this earth.

My love affair with them started as a child. My father had a garden up the two terraced hills in our backyard. It seemed, back then, way up there, away from the house that is was  closer to the clouds and heaven. He would go up there to work and I would watch him, translation: get in the way I am certain! Kids just do that, the intention to help is appreciated but often times, delays what you are trying to do.

In the back of the garden were some sunflower seeds I had planted. I thought they’d died because there were no signs of life. Then slowly but surely, the stems started to grow. They flourished back there even when other vegetables in that garden were not showing signs of life! It wasn’t that long before they were tall and blooming. They seemed to be reaching for the sun, with their faces turned upwards. How can you look at a sunflower in full bloom and not feel happy inside?  That is exactly how those flowers affected me, even as a small kid. 

Things changed when the flowers had visible seeds. This occurred a month or longer after they

bloomed. Some of the success of the seeds thriving is due to the pollination process, thus bees are needed. Hence, there was always a bee swarming around the sunflowers in the back of the yard making it somewhat treacherous, if you are slightly allergic to be stings, to stand right by them for a long period of time. So I would stand back and enjoy their splendor.

Sunflower seeds are considered ripe when the flower turns yellow and the seeds in the center begin to turn brown. That is about the time the birds descended on my sunflower plants! I never realized we had so many birds around till then. They flew from everywhere and I was certain some were from miles away. I told myself they had to be because they were so plentiful in number.

The birds would pick on the seeds unmercifully and what was left was nothing of the picture of

vibrancy originally seen. My mood would shift from elation at the blooming to dismal for the lack of the color and beauty of the flower. I would quickly forget that the blooms would be back and just stare at them with sadness inside pondering the possibility of them not blooming again.

I learned from this beautiful flower that even plants strive to reach the sky, not just little girls.

I learned that bees and birds are part of nature’s magic. They each played a part in the growth of the flower as the birds dropped seeds nearby which sometimes grew to be another sunflower. Sunflowers eventually became much more numerous that my two single plants  

 

I saw, represented in this flower, the need for sunlight and hopeful positive thinking. Nature always comes back around. God makes certain of it.

I learned also that some people thought of the gangling plant as a weed, a nuisance, just like some people see children. But the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

May you find in nature, perhaps with a gaze of a sunflower, proof that God is waiting for you to reach up to him before you can flourish.

Obsession Confession of Tessie

Puppy Tessie

     There is a little thing that’s round with lines on it, commonly used in a game with a net across a court, a tennis ball. In our home, it is known as Tessie’s toy. I think I need to be more accurate, the tennis ball is Tessie our labradoodle’s obsession!

          It started one day with a walk in the park.  We saw someone throwing a tennis ball at their dog and

Game-Face

the pet retrieving it. We took Tessie home and went down to the area in our community and threw a few to her. Instinctively she knew exactly what to do. And to our surprise, she did not want to stop. In fact, when we tried to, she cried.

     Since that day, she has a love for those balls that is beyond comprehension.  If other dogs are out, she ignores them. Her single focus is “the ball.” She is anxiously waiting for “the throw” and that is her single concern, she could care less about the other four legged critters in the area. 

     If another dog attempts to play ball with her, she is what is known as a ball hog! Yes, she rudely cuts in front of everyone, outruns dogs, sometimes literally running into them to retrieve the ball.  She is hell-bent on a mission and stops at nothing from capturing it in her mouth. She jumps, squats, flips, dives with and without grace all to capture that round bouncing ball. She then proudly runs it back with her prancey dancey gait back to you to throw it again!

     If a human being is in the vicinity, they are ignored also. Their role in her life, when outside and a tennis ball is in view is simply to throw it.  If you are do not she has no use for you in her life. She runs for the balls until her mouth is drooping, her tongue is hanging out and she looks like she is on her last leg. We have to make her stop!

     The tennis balls are in the drink cups of our golf cart. If we take Tessie on a ride in the cart, she picks up a ball and carries it in her mouth for the entire ride. She looks to the right and to the left checking out the scenery. She sits up and down admiring the yards but through it all, the ball is firmly in her mouth and she refuses to lose her grip on it no matter how long we are riding.

Notice the tennis ball on the couch?

     Within our home, because we forget that she has them in our mouth, she sneaks in with the balls.  Thus, tennis balls have been found in virtually every room in the house.  It is nothing to walk into the bathroom and find a tennis ball in the middle of the floor or see one sitting on the window sill in the living room as if it was placed there as part of the décor.

     She has garnered a reputation as the 

Tennis Ball Queen.   Those on our side of our community where we live know her well, and her 

passion. Thereby, when they see tennis balls out, as they tell us with laughter in their voices, they know Tessie has been there. The balls have become her 'calling card'. Yes, even Tessie, from time to time slips up and leaves a beloved tennis ball behind.

     Never have we ever known a dog more obsessed with playing with a ball. She brings them to you and cries and whines to play. She carries them in her mouth in the house. So if they ever stop making tennis balls, we will be in a heap of trouble and have one unhappy dog! And very unhappy owners!

Savor The Time With You

It’s finally done! A book for many of my more popular blogs is now available in paperback or as a digital version on Amazon.  What a feeling of accomplishment! It only took being quarantined to find the time. What we do with empty space defines us.

It's harder to write about carefree things when the nation/world is going through a pandemic because everything else seems so trivial. And yet, life is made up of small things, details and moments that combined make for a meaningful life. Thus, perhaps writing now makes the most sense!?

I hope that those that read my blogs are taking time to examine their life during this quiet period. Never before have most of us been left to our own devices at home for so long. Your home is your comfort zone so it is the perfect place and this IS the ideal time to do a personal inventory of yourself.

Ask yourself if you have your priorities straight and if you are spending the right amount of time with each.  Is your physical, mental and spiritual health where it needs to be?  If not, Game On, set goals and then create steps to make them materialize. Stay committed. Today's date is when you should start new patterns of behavior, routine habits that are healthier ways of living. Three weeks of learned behavior improves your odds of making it permanent.

Whether it is finishing a book, holding a loved one longer or savoring a cup of coffee, do it now. Cherish the  moments instead of whining about what is not.  At the end of the day, hopefully you will discover there is nobody better to be quarantined with than you!

New Book Available now on Amazon:

A Blog A Day Helps Keep The Therapist At Bay   by Veronica Gliatti

Don't Bore Yourself!

Life with #Covid19 (Coronavirus) in our midst is different, a much slower pace than most Americans are used to! Activity levels are down and anxiety is up with less to do with it. Never before in our lifetime have most of us lived somewhat quarantined.

As days pass, I am reminded of a college exam in a writing class I took. After getting graded on journals and writing throughout, the final exam would be 30% of our grade. Therefore, we all assumed she would pick some noteworthy or exciting topic. Instead the subject we were to write about was any of the following, boring, bored or boredom. We all got brain freeze staring at the bored, I mean board!

Of all the topics to pick to write about, why did she pick that?  And faced with a blue book that we were supposed to fill with script of creative writing that enticed her to read more and grade high, we all made audible groans. Then reality set in; this class was as much about creative writing as the actual art of writing, hence the topic. This topic stimulated thinking outside the box to write something excellent to read about a topic that anyone might otherwise pass over.

Fast forward to today’s world, most of us are living in isolation. Stores are closed, parks and many of   It is easier to live status quo which right now would be boring.

the activities we usually partake to keep our lives stimulating. Quite easily life can be boring and the true challenge is, much like that exam assignment, to be creative in thinking and actions.

Take the exam challenge! Begin the day feeling eager to come up with things to do besides just passing time.  It does not have to be large tasks, it can be mental challenges, hand-write a note to an old friend, email your family, call someone, pick up a new hobby, etc. Be grateful for the day and the blessings you have always. Go to bed happy and fulfilled with your life. Reflect on what you did differently and what you will add to tomorrow. Remember life could always be worse.  Any given day, if you are 100% bored through the course of an entire day, you are making that choice.  Choose to be stimulated and live!

Mother in the Clutches of Dementia

Dementia is terrible thing. I am learning of just what it robs someone of, normalcy. Perhaps

those suffering from it, in the later stages, don’t  notice it as much but for those interacting with them, it is a flagrant reminder of a mind lost in itself in a land that seems far away, somehow misplaced and never coming back.

My biological mother was diagnosed several years ago with dementia. She joined the 47.5 million cases worldwide. Predictions are there will be 82 million in 2030 and 152 million cases in 2050.  5 Million live in the United States, Mom being one so she is not alone by any stretch.

Living in an active over 55+ community, I still come in contact with an aging population that has residents who occasionally have spouses or parents that have dementia. It is not the same as when your family member is afflicted.  I am not sure much of anything prepares you emotionally.   It is draining just to be in a conversation.  

My sister Terri has become my namesake when conversing with my mother. More often than not, I am not only called her name but all references are to her life, memories of time spent with her and reflections on her thoughts and feelings towards Terri. It is pointless to correct her so I find myself responding in Terri-like fashion.  I call my sister afterwards, tongue-in-cheek, to lessen the heartache and tell her what “she” said to Mom. She does likewise as she is frequently in the same position responding in my given name.

Some of my conversations with Mom these days are about things and people I know nothing about. She will lapse into memories and because I was raised by my father and stepmother, I do not have knowledge of a great portion of her life so have no idea of what she is talking about and she is totally unaware. Any normal verbal cues are gone when dementia hits.

Mom operates on a short fuse. She is quick to anger and to sadness. Either mood is hard to lessen or erase so I am careful to not trigger either!  Being several states away, I am dealing with emotions and dementia over the telephone most of the time so am pretty powerless to do much but listen and send things.  And the requests for items to send are becoming more frequent as she doesn’t recall what she asked for. A letter will come, two in a day asking for the same thing, the realities of dementia in black and white. Envelopes will come without hard to decipher hand-writing talking of things I know nothing of. With the affect it has on our lives, I keep it to myself as like so many others,  no one wants to talk about it though it affects millions of Americans and great numbers worldwide!

Mom is alive yet living at half-mask. What are painful are the times she is more than aware of it and makes statements about how silly and disappointed she is at what her life has become. It is then when I and everyone who has ever dealt with the dreaded disease pray there will be a cure or better treatment options in the future so that elderly do not have to suffer with losing their minds. 

This needs to be freely discussed for the  millions suffering, growing daily, and communicate the importance of early screening!  70% of cases are Alzheimer’s, a more serious form that thankfully my mother doesn't  have. 58% of all patients in the US live in lower income homes so funding is needed so financial resources for dementia are essential too. 

As I look back, it is with a grateful heart I had some wonderful memories with Mom before she was in the clutches of dementia. Now I simply embrace her in whatever way I can for as long as I can watching her mind slip away.

Lessons From My Inbox

• I must love to spend money because anyone selling anything is sending me shit!
• All candidates running need and want my support because they all want to let me know they have my back.
• Somebody out there wants to date me even though I am happily married!
• Somebody in some Godforsaken country picked up a check with my name on it every so often and wants to help me by cashing it. Ah, the generosity of some people never ceases to amaze me!
• Competitors of companies of items I have purchased value my business too because they bombard me with their marketing campaigns and feel I am gullible enough to buy into them.
• Gaining another credit card will increase my spending power (yeah right)
• A new car is waiting for me to pull into the dealership and claim it! That simple!
• If I just click on a link, I will become an instant winner of whatever, some free giveaway. I don’t have to work for it, just move my mouse and click!
• Every site I visited has a log and wants me back!  They know something about what I want to do with my time that I don’t. I need and want to spend it with them, at their place of business, not writing this!

Oh My God, Visitors!!!

I keep waiting for Tessie to slow down, become less exuberant when someone new comes to the door. She is two, how much longer must I wait???

The average day: We wake up to a beautiful day with our wonderful loving pet/child wagging her tail.  Thus begins a new day and she is content, stretching and yawning much as a person rolling out of bed as she steps out of her kennel/crate. 

As the morning progresses, sweet Tess curls up in the lanai on a lazy boy

 chair to take in the outside noises as the windows are propped open, perhaps just for her? She sits silently for hours watching the grass blow and has become an avid Bird Watcher!  Occasionally she will step inside to see what is amiss in the house, with her mom and pops. 

There is that occasional switch to another window in the house for an alternative view of the world.  Notably the front window is a great resting place, where golf carts drive by in full view.

Lo and behold, someone comes to the door…..the world is on edge, Tessie’s world that is!  All hell breaks loose as her bark begins in earnest to announce “Intruders are present and accounted for!”  Even after being assured all is well with us, she continues to breathe heavy, pace and becomes a beast lurching at the door with her front paws.

At these times, a small 10 lb. mutt seems like a slice of heaven compared to a 55 lb. ball of hairy muscle and confusion frantically trying to save the world! Tessie the beast is arisen. Our once gentle passive docile pet is so high-strung it affects both us and our visitors for a moment. 

As we are yelling “Place” her command to return to her safe zone, that being a raised mat she has been trained to go on, we somewhat laugh.  We are not supposed to be giving commands in raised voices but above the thrashing of her body we cannot be heard talking in a normal tone.  Tessie places then pops off. We give the command, then back she goes,,, then off she comes. Usually after two times, Tess is there to stay until given a command to come off.

When our precious ball of fur is released, we go through Round Two. The humor comes into play when we try to explain she is normally very calm-natured.  I believe company brings out the hellion in her and we see a far different side of Tessie than the one out in the lanai that ignores us most of the day. 

So, as she ages, the question remains, will this lovable pup soon learn that visitors are not intruders?  Is Tessie going to back off her demands for attention from every single person that graces her with a visit to her ‘dog cave’? Will she learn that people do not like tongues that have licked other parts of her body on them? And lastly, what is the time-frame that Tessie will quit acting like a dog?

Can't Take Ugly Out of the C Word

Cancer does not discriminate who its victims are. From the young to the old, the doctors utter “You have cancer.” No matter how it’s said, the result is the same, an uphill battle with some unknowns. 

The lucky ones are diagnosed in the early stages where there is a high probability of recovery. Note, I did not say getting rid of cancer because, in many cases, that assurance just cannot be there. When cancer is not confined to one particular organ or cell groupings, it is hard for doctors to predict its spread and the long-term impact of its existence in the body. Nor can the long term effects of the treatment often be contained.

Therefore we are a society that seems to be plagued with hearing of loved ones, friends and neighbors getting diagnosed these days and wondering what lies ahead.  In the back of our mind is the over-riding question, who is next?  Will it be my loved one or me? 

The number of survivors continues to grow giving more hope that there is life post-cancer diagnosis. The re occurrence of cancer for those thought to have “beat it” which in and of itself is a bit of a misnomer, gives survivors fuel for fear. Yet, life is precious, perhaps more so for one who has waged a battle against the foreign invader already, cancer.  Learned is the principle one must go on, day by day, realizing the preciousness of a day in the life of ______.

And so must we all, even with the influx of stories of those affected and touched by cancer, move forward with hopes for cures. Be diligent in knowledge-gathering on the disease. But be careful to not become hyper-vigilant to the point where fear rules your day. Be compassionate towards those that are directly touched by cancer knowing their attitude towards the word and life has forever changed. Be supportive of efforts to fund research for better treatment options, early detection and eradication of the dreaded diagnosis. And at the end of the day, be grateful for the time you are given for far too many are gone too soon!

Written in honor of those who have touched my life with their diagnoses and challenges.